Ive had a heap o comfort all my life makin quilts, and now in my old age I wouldnt take a fortune for em. Set down here, child, where you can see out o the winder and smell the lilacs, and well look at em all. You see, some folks has albums to put folks pictures in to remember em by, and some folks has a book and writes down the things that happen every day so they wont forgit em; but, honey, these quilts is my albums and my diries, and whenever the weathers bad and I cant git out to see folks, I jest spread out my quilts and look at em and study over em, and its jest like goin back fifty or sixty years and livin my life over agin.
There aint nothin like a piece o caliker for bringin back old times, child, unless its a flower or a bunch o thyme or a piece o pennyroyl anything that smells sweet. Why, I can go out yonder in the yard and gether a bunch o that purple lilac and jest shut my eyes and see faces I aint seen for fifty years, and somethin goes through me like a flash o lightnin, and it seems like Im young agin jest for that minute.
Aunt Janes hands were stroking lovingly a nine-patch that resembled the coat of many colors.
Now this quilt, honey, she said, I made out o the pieces o my childrens clothes, their little dresses and waists and aprons. Some of ems dead, and some of ems grown and married and a long way off from me, further off than the ones thats dead, I sometimes think. But when I set down and look at this quilt and think over the pieces, it seems like they all come back, and I can see em playin around the floors and goin in and out, and hear em cryin and laughin and callin me jest like they used to do before they grew up to men and women, and before there was any little graves o mine out in the old buryin-ground over yonder.
Wonderful imagination of motherhood that can bring childhood back from the dust of the grave and banish the wrinkles and gray hairs of age with no other talisman than a scrap of faded calico!
The old womans hands were moving tremulously over the surface of the quilt as if they touched the golden curls of the little dream children who had vanished from her hearth so many years ago. But there were no tears either in her eyes or in her voice. I had long noticed that Aunt Jane always smiled when she spoke of the people whom the world calls dead, or the things it calls lost or past. These words seemed to have for her higher and tenderer meanings than are placed on them by the sorrowful heart of humanity.
But the moments were passing, and one could not dwell too long on any quilt, however well beloved. Aunt Jane rose briskly, folded up the one that lay across her knees, and whisked out another from the huge pile in an old splint-bottomed chair.
Heres a piece o one o Sally Anns purple caliker dresses. Sally Ann always thought a heap o purple caliker. Heres one o Milly Amos ginghams that pink-and-white one. And that piece o white with the rosebuds in it, thats Miss Penelopes. She give it to me the summer before she died. Bless her soul! That dress jest matched her face exactly. Somehow her and her clothes always looked alike, and her voice matched her face, too. One o the things Im lookin forward to, child, is seein Miss Penelope agin and hearin her sing. Voices and faces is alike; theres some that you cant remember, and theres some you cant forgit. Ive seen a heap o people and heard a heap o voices, but Miss Penelopes face was different from all the rest, and so was her voice. Why, if she said Good morning to you, youd hear that Good mornin all day, and her singin I know there never was anything like it in this world. My grandchildren all laugh at me for thinkin so much o Miss Penelopes singin, but then they never heard her, and I have: thats the difference. My grandchild Henrietta was down here three or four years ago, and says she, Grandma, dont you want to go up to Louisville with me and hear Patti sing? And says I, Patty who, child? Says I, If it was to hear Miss Penelope sing, Id carry these old bones o mine clear from here to New York. But there aint anybody else I want to hear sing bad enough to go up to Louisville or anywhere else. And some o these days, says I, Im goin to hear Miss Penelope sing.
Aunt Jane laughed blithely, and it was impossible not to laugh with her.
Honey, she said, in the next breath, lowering her voice and laying her finger on the rosebud piece, honey, theres one thing I cant git over. Heres a piece o Miss Penelopes dress, but wheres Miss Penelope? Aint it strange that a piece o calikerll outlast you and me? Dont it look like folks ought o hold on to their bodies as long as other folks holds on to a piece o the dresses they used to wear?
Questions as old as the human heart and its human grief! Here is the glove, but where is the hand it held but yesterday? Here the jewel that she wore, but where is she?
Where is the Pompadour[17] now? This was the Pompadours fan!
Strange, that such things as gloves, jewels, fans, and dresses can outlast a womans form.
Strange, that such things as gloves, jewels, fans, and dresses can outlast a womans form.